They got to the point where tmho it's mostly a commercial reason why x race can be linked to x class. They will always make a lore adjustment that explains as to why.

However instead of adding classes/specs to the matrix and avoid that any race can be played by any class, I'd rather see them trim down. Horde has shamans, alliance paladins. Get rid of blood elves altogether. Will never happen, but we can only dream.

1.) Are there (a lot) race/class combos that dont make any/few sense? Yes there are
2.) Would new race/class combos be justified? Entirely up to blizz. If it can be turned into new money (which is obvious would be the case with race switches), there's really no reason blizz wouldn't implement it.
3.) Any reason to not have them? Honestly, some people will get butthurt about lore-rape and w/e, and I'll admit back then I belonged to those, but well, just dont play these comps and look the other way when you encounter them. What's the point raging over them? Enjoy the game, wether it is a new combination you always wanted, or sticking to those that make sense for yourself.
Why ruin it for others by complaining when you can just stick to your ideal? Ruining your gaming experience? Who are we kidding? Gnomes themselves contribute towards that from day one! Infants with inflated heads should be challenged to actually live and walk, but fighting as death knights/tanks? Really?
4.) Reasons to have this comb? Well, duh. People would play it of course (and likely pay for race changes even). Blood elves for whatever reason are among the most popular races ingame. If teens and imature adults prefer running around as barbie and ken in wolfpelts, let them, maybe we'll get a stronger shaman representation/lobby, and more attention that way.
5.) What about lore? Aside from blizzard's numerous lore-twisting for the cata combs, shamanism basically requires reverence for ancestors and elements. Blood elves worship power, so bending the elements to their will would fit 100%, and in rememberance of their slaughtered kind named themselves acordingly, so what else do we need? They've been allied with the horde for a while now, so yeah, some of that rubbing of to them wouldn't be far fetched. Orcs/trolls/taurens teaching them? There's been worse.
They've been ranger's/hunters for generations and with that have a link to nature, and likely are the most powerful casters among all playable races and should have the potential to turn druid, like their cousins the night elves. Sooo hunters => druids => shamans, not that far fetched.

Basically, argueing about reasons about yay/nay is pointless imo. At least in here. If blizz is confronted with the suggestion enough on twitter/officials though, it may happen. Makes more sense about what it could look like (blood elf shaman lore that is), if it came to be.

And to get in to that forsaken/hunter thing:
Yes, there was nathanos blightcaller, but if we remember his pets... it were undead hounds.
There was also that quest in howling fjord with that undead kennelmaster:

Normal dogs won't come anywhere near me nowadays. I was devastated when I found out... I used to love the beasts.

Plaguehounds make for a fine substitute, however. They're not quite as... easy on the eyes. But then again, neither am I! - Pontius

So basically undead are shunned by living beasts. Plaguehounds are tameable now, but aside from that, and few others, like bats...it would have to be expected that undeads be uncapable of raising and caring for most pets.

Last edited by Omanley; 2013-09-27 at 07:30 PM.

Originally Posted by Angoth

I'm sorry that Blizzard won't just gift wrap awesome in a cup and let you drink your fill.

Anyways, I hate these thread honestly, they always become infested with half-assed lore, which is mostly outdated, some guy always says something about Sunwalkers being silly, then that debate takes over for a while, before it returns to the original subject... Sigh...

To summarize; If the Blood Elves were interested in learning about Shamanism and the Elemenst, and found a conduit and a teacher race - then yes, they could become shamans.

Oh and please, move on with the "duhh new cata race-class combos makes no sense" rambling, the horse is dead, stop beating it.

^ Experienced forum-goer speaks the truth.

There are two reasonable options, given the bending of lore in race/class combos: (1) change the racials to have less performance impact and keep lore-centric race/class combos or (2) allow all race/class combos.

While you aren't wrong, you aren't right either. There are some issues between comparing the Ranger to the playable Hunter class.

It's somehow due to game mechanics, forcing to the same name different forms of combat/magic schools that while different, have indeed a common theme; the Sunwalkers are a good example, they don't worship the Light in the same way of the paladins, they worship the Sun (An'she) and the fact that they are called Paladins in-game and have the same, precise skills from level 1 to level 90 is indeed nothing more than game mechanics.

Another, maybe even better example, are the Troll Warlocks: their magic should be tied to dark voodoo and other similar kind of black magic (the kind of magic used by Zalazane and the Fakkari, for example) and not tied to the demons, the shadow and the chaotic fire of the Burning Legion.

On topic:

Blood elf shamans are not utterly impossible, but is just terrible as a general idea. Blood elf druids? We saw one in Botanica, that would make a bit of sense (even if hardly the blood elves as a people have any interest in mass-learning druidism) but blood elf shamans is just.....meh. Not even the over-naturalist night elves had the slightest need in their entire history to embrace the chaotic ways of shamanism, and the blood elves have an even lesser connection with nature/elements (they can be easily considered in par with humans in this).

Originally Posted by Keyblader

It's a general rule though that if you play horde you are a bad person irl. It's just a scientific fact

Originally Posted by Amerrol

So many ignorant Horde fanboys. I guess if you play a savage faction it slowly starts to lower your IQ

Blood elf shamans are not utterly impossible, but is just terrible as a general idea. Blood elf druids? We saw one in Botanica, that would make a bit of sense (even if hardly the blood elves as a people have any interest in mass-learning druidism) but blood elf shamans is just.....meh.

1-2 blood elf druids does not make for a reasonable argument for playable blood elf druids, though. They are an anomaly in lore. The lore surrounding the Botanica ALSO indicates this--the blood elves in the Botanica gained new powers through their experimentation on local fauna. The fact that we DEFEATED the elves in the Botanica and that we have not heard about blood elf druids since should indicate to players that we should consider them to be an aberration.

What I'd like to see instead for blood and night elves is a new Ranger class, or possibly a 4th hunter spec that is petless and uses a combination of melee/ranged abilities. But shamans/druids? No. The only way I see this coming about is if Blizzard unlocks all class/race combos in the game, something I am not *necessarily* against but we are throwing all lore out the window at that point if such a change came about.

3 Alliance paladins vs 2 Horde. Shamans are a natural Horde race just like paladins are for Alliance but Paladins are one of, if not the most played class so adding another race Paladin accessible for the Alliance would not help this situation.

1-2 blood elf druids does not make for a reasonable argument for playable blood elf druids, though. They are an anomaly in lore. The lore surrounding the Botanica ALSO indicates this--the blood elves in the Botanica gained new powers through their experimentation on local fauna. The fact that we DEFEATED the elves in the Botanica and that we have not heard about blood elf druids since should indicate to players that we should consider them to be an aberration.

I used the term a bit purposely, I'm absolutely sure that lorewise "common" blood elves and druidism have no connection to one another, and indeed I never wanted to make an argument for bring blood elf druids as a playable class.

The point was, since we're talking of something pretty extreme like blood elf shamans, in comparison, even blood elf druids would make more sense; which speaks by itself how damn sense would have such an awful race-class combination.

Originally Posted by Keyblader

It's a general rule though that if you play horde you are a bad person irl. It's just a scientific fact

Originally Posted by Amerrol

So many ignorant Horde fanboys. I guess if you play a savage faction it slowly starts to lower your IQ

Absolutely not. Shamanism is nothing like the Thalassian (High/Blood) Elves at all.
Sadly, if they'd be anything of a new class it would be Druid even though it makes no sense whatsoever either.
If you wonder why Druid makes little sense, it is because inability to adapt to Druidism 8.000 years ago ended up with the High Elves being banished from their homeland. As for Shamanism, it's a primitive and primal practice - I could say the same for Monks but that's a personal disagreement with Blizzard for certain race/class combos.

For what I've seen about other questioned combinations, being a Hunter as an Undead isn't really that logical - considering from a lore perspective Undead would have companions that suit them, such as plagued dogs, spiders and other vile creatures. Gnome Priests also had an explanation for them. If anything makes no sense, it's Goblin Shamans/Priests.